Google reportedly working on its own SoC for Pixel smartphones

Looks like Google is pretty committed when it comes to its Pixel line up of Android smartphones. The search giant recently made an interesting talent acquisition by hiring Manu Gulati who previously worked as an SoC architect with Apple. Gulati has been a part of the group that designed Apple’s highly acclaimed A-X series of mobile SoC’s that are arguably among the world’s fastest. What however, is making news now is Gulati’s recent update on his LinkedIn profile which seems to indicate that he has been hired by Google to design a series of SoC’s that many believe will be designed exclusively to be used for Google’s Pixel series. His title at Google has been described as “Lead SoC architect”. That is a rather strange designation for a company that is mostly known for its software.

Gulati has had several achievements during his stint at Apple and is credited with as many as 15-chip related patents. Gulati has also played a key role in designing Apple’s custom chips – including the A4. He was also instrumental in designing the hardware based secure storage of fingerprints data on the iPhone – technology that is used with Apple Pay nowadays. Prior to working with Apple. Gulati also worked with AMD and Broadcom.

All said, there is no denying the fact that the possibility of Google making its own SoC for its Pixel line up sounds a bit too far fetched at this point of time. Even if they do start work now, it will be at least late 2018 until we observe some tangible development in this field. That said, it would be interesting to see if an SoC custom built for Pixel does end up being far more optimized compared to the generic ones from Qualcomm that Google currently uses. Do not expect these SoC’s to appear on this year’s Pixel models.